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Battlelines drawn for Cancun climate summit: `Nature has no price!'

Protesters in Newcastle,Australia, December 20, 2009. Photo by Rising Tide.

By Simon Butler

November 22, 2010 -- Green Left Weekly -- If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success. This phrase has
become the unofficial motto of this year’s United Nations climate
conference in Cancun, Mexico. Just out from Cancun, which runs over November 29 to December 10,
there is little hope of meaningful progress. Yet key players have sought
to throw a shroud of official optimism over the looming failure.

In the lead-up to Copenhagen, public expectations were high. There
was a widespread feeling that politicians could no longer ignore the
warnings from climate scientists. Many politicians said they agreed
strong, decisive action to curb emissions was needed.

But when the big polluting countries blocked a new legally binding treaty at Copenhagen, they were badly exposed.

Its “people’s declaration” said the climate emergency “urges us to
unite and transform the dominant social and economic system as well as
global governance, which currently block necessary solutions to the
climate crisis”.

The dissent on the streets outside the official summit was matched by
dissent within. Delegates from the world’s poorest countries denounced
the rich nations’ agenda to destroy the Kyoto Protocol and hold off from
making deep emissions cuts.

Lumumba Di-Aping, spokesperson for the G77 group of 130
underdeveloped countries, said the rich country governments’ target to allow
temperatures to rise by 2°C was like asking Africa “to sign a suicide
pact”. “I would rather die with my dignity than sign a deal that will
channel my people into a furnace”, he said. Third World delegates
repeatedly walked out of summit sessions in protest against the rich
nations’ attempts to kill off the Kyoto treaty.

From the Copenhagen rostrum, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez
repeated the slogan chanted by the protesters outside: “If the climate
were a bank, they would have bailed it out already.”

At the last minute, the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa
introduced a new proposal — the Copenhagen Accord. The accord was not
binding on any country, set no timeline to achieve emissions cuts and
insisted on the dangerous 2°C warming target.

The summit did not adopt the Copenhagen Accord. Outraged delegates
pointed out it would be a step backward from the Kyoto Protocol, not a
step forward.

Copenhagen ended in disarray. Confidence in the UN process was
weakened. The hypocrisy and double-dealing of nations such as the United
States, the European Union and Australia was exposed to millions.

Managing expectations

As a consequence, the publicity for the Cancun summit has been far
more about managing public expectations than managing humanity’s
relationship with the natural world.

“Cancun will be a success, if parties compromise”, said UN climate
chief Christina Figueres on November 15. “They have to balance their
expectations so that everyone can carry home a positive achievement
while allowing others to do the same.”

Figueres said the Cancun talks could reach a deal on protecting
forests, making technology more widely available and helping poor
countries adapt to climate change.

However, she said a deal to make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions — the most important measure — would not be made.

Can Cancun be successful if it won’t agree to cut emissions? If this
were the outcome, it would be as much a “success” as a peace conference
that failed to end a war.

But as at Copenhagen, the poor nations that will bear some of the worst
impacts of climate change will fight for far stronger climate action at
Cancun.

ALBA leads resistance

The most strident resistance will likely come from the nations grouped in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA).

The five countries said the world could not afford for Cancun to be a
repeat of Copenhagen: “We hope that accords will be reached [at Cancun]
in which developed countries … effectively assume their obligation to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, without making climate change into a
business through the promotion and creation of carbon market
mechanisms.”

recognition and legal protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples and people forced to migrate due to climate change;

the formation of an International Climate Justice Tribunal empowered
to penalise nations and corporations that flout international law;

opposition to any new carbon markets for greenhouse gases or forests; and

compensation paid by the developed countries most responsible for
causing climate change to poor countries suffering its worst impacts.
Bolivia proposes developed countries allocate 6% of their annual GDP to
adaptation and development projects in the global South.

Further, Bolivia wants the UN to put its proposals to a global referendum on climate change.

The odds will be stacked against the ALBA nations at Cancun.
Relentless pressure from the US and the EU has meant about 130 countries
have now endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, even though most rejected it
at first.

But there will be resistance to this business-as-usual agenda at Cancun, which is a cause for hope.

A successful outcome at Cancun will be not be measured by the
compromises struck with the powerful interests prepared to sacrifice the
integrity of the Earth’s ecosystems on the altar of profit.

Success at Cancun will depend on how loudly the voices for climate
justice are heard and the contribution that makes to arouse wider
resistance.

[This article first appeared in Green Left Weekly, Australia's leading socialist newspaper. Simon Butler is a climate activist in Sydney, and a member of the Socialist Alliance.]